My Hijacked Life

My hijacked life doesn’t look like I expected it would. As a little girl, all kinds of people conditioned me with ideas and dreams about what life would be like when I grew up; when I become a woman. Little did I know that I would never become a woman, at least not in the way idealized by many of my mother’s generation.

Although I went through the requisite pubescent transformation, I never became a mother. In fact, I have never become many of the things everyone told me or expected of me: a lover, a mother or a caregiver. In fact, in some ways I feel as though my life has been hijacked.

I always thought I was doing something worthwhile in teaching and becoming a missionary and I believed while I pursued those worthy vocations that perhaps I would meet a man with similar interests and life paths and we would continue on pursing those worthy vocations together. As the years went by, the dream of children in that equation faded as it inevitably does, but oddly enough the anticipated find a potential mate has yet to be realized.

The Continuation of My Hijacked Life

Finally in the summer of 2015, spurred to action by my desire to be a parent I decided to investigate local foster family agencies and to attend classes for future foster parents. I had explored foster to adopt at other times and in other places, but the timing had always been wrong. This particular summer, just as I had completed all but one of the required training courses through the Bill Wilson Center and was preparing to submit my application to become a foster parent, I was diagnosed with cancer. Those plans to finally become a parent were immediately derailed and once again, I felt the crushing weight of disappointment in my hijacked life.

It seems like there is always another surprise on the way. Unexpected disappointments can crush and break, but one can rise up in brokenness with anticipation and faith that life is still good, even when it seems like our hopes and dreams have been hijacked.